So GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Lee wasn’t the only GOP gubernatorial candidate throwing his money at “the different kind of Republican,” State Senator Steve Dickerson (R-Nashville), to help him get elected again in 2016.
Lee only gave Dickerson $1,000 in 2016, which, as it turns out, was significantly less than either of his two main rivals for the GOP nomination for governor, Rep. Diane Black (R-TN-06), and Knoxville businessman Randy Boyd gave the liberal Republican state senator from Nashville.
Back before anyone really knew just what kind of “different” Republican Steve Dickerson would be – that is in 2012 before he was elected to his first term in the Tennessee State Senate, Diane and David Black gave him a total of $5,990 – an odd amount to be sure. But it looks like the bloom was off the rose a bit, so to speak, since after his first term mis-steps, they gave him a piddling $3,000 in 2016–three times the amount Bill Lee gave him that year.
But picking up after the slacker donors Lee and Black in 2016, and probably gearing up for his own campaign, Randy Boyd, along with his wife Jenny Boyd, together gave Dickerson a total of $6,000, a donation that preceded Dickerson’s endorsement of Boyd for governor, and was six times the amount Bill Lee gave him that year.
As a reminder why Dickerson is a bad investment for conservative donors, here’s a summary of his track record, from our OFF THE RECORD earlier this week:
- In 2015, Dickerson voted in the Senate Education Committee to give in-state tuition to illegal alien students and then voted again on the Senate floor to help pass that bill
- Also in 2015, Dickerson was the ONLY Republican to vote with Senate Democrats AGAINST Tennessee’s 10th Amendment challenge to the federal refugee resettlement program, Bill Lee sent him a $1,000 campaign donation
- In 2016, Dickerson had the LOWEST rating at 57% from the American Conservative Union Foundation putting him even lower than the highest rated Democrat Senator at 75%
- Dickerson punched in “present” at his desk according to the Senate’s posted roll call for the session during which the Senate passed a bill that would help avoid using taxpayer money to fund elective abortions. But this low rated Senator did not cast a vote on this bill.
